Kamis, 20 Januari 2011

In Defense of Security Theater (Sorta)

I travel often, and until relatively recently I was doing over 100,000 miles a year. I've cut back a lot because my jobs have changed and I felt bad about my carbon footprint, but the bottom line is I've spent a lot of quality time with the TSA. And amidst all of the recent (often justified) blowback against their more-intrusive personal pat-downs, I thought I'd articulate a little bit of why overall, the security theater we go through at airports these days doesn't really bother me.

First, some important points:
  • I'm not suggesting that taking off our shoes at x-rays, or having our testicles tapped, or not having more than 3 ounces of liquids actually keep us safe against any innovative new attacks.
  • There are absolutely documented cases of a few of the many thousands of TSA agents out there abusing their stations, with infractions ranging from questionable to egregiously immoral.
  • I'm not in favor of a police state, and strongly support civil disobedience and effective attempts to change overbearing security policies.
  • TSA security policies are ridiculously over-focused on the last attempted attacks, instead of future ones.
With all that being said, I don't think our current system of security theater as practiced by the TSA is necessarily the wrong thing to do.

The Hand You're Dealt

The TSA lists their mission as "protect[ing] the Nation’s transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce." A mission like that is a bit like the mission of our financial regulatory agencies after the recent market meltdowns — some of it is about putting in place better preventive policies, but a lot of it is also about managing perceptions. Free movement of people essentially relies on the largest number of those people feeling safe to move.

And many people, frankly, are pretty stupid about air travel. They don't do it often, don't have a mental model of how air travel really works, aren't particularly educated about the security processes they have to participate in, and aren't logical in the way they respond to security measures.I don't say any of these things as criticisms, just as observations based on experience. More often than not, the person behind me or in front of me in the security line at an airport seems to be unsure of some part of the process, not just at the level of 'is it time to take our shoes off now?' but at the deeper sense of 'what is this process I'm taking part in?' And often, their behaviors are similarly uninformed. Sure, I've gotten annoyed at having to go through random secondary screening, but that's frankly only happened a tiny fraction of the time I travel. By contrast, every single time I get on a plane in the U.S., I see at least one person studiously watching me put my belongings on the conveyor belt, as if they're performing an act of heroism by personally observing me. Sure, I look a lot like Marwan al-Shehhi, but I'm not sure their memories are that good.

I don't point that out in order to (merely) begrudge them their prejudices, though. I point it out because the TSA has to serve those people, too. Most of us who control the conversation on social media or in the rarified air of traditional media are experienced flyers, who pride ourselves on the logical rigor of our analyses of TSA technique. But we're not the majority of flyers. And some large percentage of people who travel, in order to feel safe, have to see or feel an experience that addresses their fears about traveling, regardless of whether that experience is based in logic or rationality.

Enter The Theater

This is where the 'theater' aspect of security theater comes in. Any theatrical performance is designed to elicit a feeling in its audience, even though that's obviously a manufactured or even emotionally manipulative process. In the case of security theater, part of the TSA's mission is to elicit the feeling of safety from travelers. This is a good thing. As much as it pains those of us in the media establishment to say so, it is just as legitimate for the TSA to have 'make people feel safe' as a goal as it is to have 'make people actually be safe'.

In the particular case of invasive body-scanning technology, this obviously raises the question of what we mean by 'safe'. There's safe from people hiding secret explosives or weapons, and then there's safe from the prying eyes of government employees. The majority of travelers, who aren't always savvy or logical in their evaluations of such processes, and who only rarely have to face the indignities of the situation anyway, don't see governmental intrusiveness as being nearly as 'unsafe' as the other form of potential risk.

So, if you were in charge of the TSA, which audience of travelers would you piss off? I think the only reasonable choice you could make would probably look something like the current compromise, once you consider the different segments of the public you have to address, the level of training and experience of current field staff, and the variety of threats that are actually being attempted.

Keep in mind: If someone did get through with another shoe bomb, or someone successfully made a liquid explosive after that potential risk had been identified, or body-scanning technology was made available to stop certain types of attacks and the TSA knew about it but didn't use it, they'd be subject to far more criticism than they're getting today.

Almost any institution, when faced with a situation where they'll get harshly criticized regardless of their choice, is going to choose the option that lets them accrue more power as an institution. That's true of government agencies, corporations, and any other organization that can make itself part of society. This situation simply will not ever change until such time as Americans are willing to accept that a certain level of risk of aircraft-based terror threats always exist, and Americans have consistently indicated they're not willing to live with air travel being a fraction as deadly as, say, traveling by car. It's especially unlikely to change as, at a broader level, we encourage corporations to define our policy. The TSA is a symptom of the fact Americans like to think they're going to live forever, and that they trust corporations more than their government regardless of the track record of either. Change those facts, and then maybe we can change the TSA.

A Really Crappy Job

I'll admit, part of my willingness to partially exonerate the TSA for the current levels of stupidity at airports is because it's a really, really tough job for an agency to have. While airport screeners are obviously trained, any large force of employees who deal with the public turing times of stress are going to be constantly making egregious mistakes. Hell, there's a complaint about a McDonald's worker probably every other minute, and they're not involved in examining people's bodies, just giving them french fries.

Some of the people at the agency are also trying really hard. If you look at the TSA blog, which was one of the earliest blogs launched by any federal agency, and still remains among its best, there's a concerted effort to engage the public in a smart way. When attention-seekers exaggerate their mistreatment at the hands of the TSA, they don't get engaged in a back-and-forth, they just post footage of the event in question. When TSA agents screw up, they don't publicly shame them, they just talk about what their standards are for employees. Obviously, the range and scope of current complaints have overwhelmed their social media staff of late, but part of me thinks they'll have either reasonable answers for many situations, or take accountability for the times when they were clearly wrong. I recently answered an Ask MetaFilter question about how to contact the TSA to object to current screening procedures, and was pretty surprised at the range of options available to a citizen who wants to contact the agency, as well as the likelihood of getting a thoughful response.
All of that being said, obviously I still have misgivings about the awful experience so many of us have at the airport. I'm especially affronted because I know many of the common forms of objection, including merely opting out of the body-scanning devices, would earn me far more of an inconvenience or delay at the airport than the other folks who are protesting, simply because of how I look.

But the worst excesses of the TSA are caused by our culture, and the agency is responding to our culture's values. If you want them to change their behavior, you'll have to engage with your neighbors and fellow citizens about their fears, and evolve the way we all respond to them. They may find that conversation to be far too invasive, and you'll have to decide what to do when they ask to opt-out.

Universal and Sony Music plan ‘instant pop’ to beat piracy

Ten years after piracy first began to ravage the music industry, Britain’s two biggest record labels will finally try to play their part in stopping it, by making new singles available for sale on the day they first hit the airwaves.
Universal and Sony Music – home to Take That and Matt Cardle, respectively – hope the effort will encourage the impatient X Factor generation to buy songs they can listen to immediately rather than copying from radio broadcasts online.
Article from: TorrentFreak, Covering Torrent Sites and News since 2005. "

The Women of Twitter: Behind those sexy tweets

Women of twitter1 “The CADJPY is testing the rising trend line dating back to Nov. 2,” announced the blonde bombshell in a low-cut bikini top, discussing with seeming gravitas and authority technical levels for the value of the Canadian dollar against the Japanese yen. “Despite consumer prices and retails sales topping expectations.”
Her Twitter name, 15k, gave little hint to her identity, but there was something about her that made me more interested than usual in currency exchange rates.

So I clicked through to her account, and then to her Twitter page, hoping for exciting fever charts, perhaps of the British Pound against the U.S. Dollar.
Instead, I saw this rather disappointing picture:

Patrick%20Sim[1]

Whoever he is, he looks nothing like the blonde. Even more disappointing, he seems to know nothing about exchange rates. He just wants my money.

The Web page I’ve landed on, PS-Capital.com, says it represents a “Singapore Arbitraged Hedge Fund.” This pilot seems polite -- notice the words “thank you” imprinted on the photograph. He doesn’t inspire confidence, but at least he’s honest in explaining that the fund is a startup “awaiting funding to establish a track record.” Then, he pleads for $1,000 to $10,000 payments via PayPal to help establish seed funding.

Not tempted by the offer, I scroll down further, and realize this page is a two-for-one sales pitch. The pilot is also an Internet marketing expert, it seems. For $50, he will sell me 500 Twitter followers.
“Let me further sweeten the deal for you. I am an expert on Twitter, self taught. I am also good enough on Wordpress, again self taught,” he writes. “I am not good enough to do fancy stuff but I can create an automated blog. What does an automated blog do? ... Basically it pulls in traffic, lots of it. And by plugging in a Clickbank Id, an Adsense Id it could automatically generate revenue which is ENDLESS. It may not be much initially but it would grow and small even as it is, it just goes on and on.'
Welcome to the seedy world of Twitter marketing. Spammers and other web advertising click scams have made their way through every Internet technology, so it’s no surprise that they’ve taken over Twitter, too. Their methods are always the same -- steal clicks, sell ads against them, then try to upsell some other crazy service. Clicking through 15k’s original Canadian currency post -- instead of her profile -- yields a link to a page promising a rather precise return on a Facebook investment: “Here's How YOU Can Make $144,823.37 Using Facebook™!”
At least the author honors Facebook’s trademark. He or she does hijack your browser on that page, however, and won’t let visitors leave without quitting the application.
The spam scam plays out in a unique way on Twitter, however, as marketers are forced to get attention in 140 characters or less. Enter the “Women of Twitter.” The women likely have nothing to do with the ads, and their images may have been used without their knowledge. That’s a common and distasteful tactic. In a particularly egregious form of image theft, msnbc.com several years ago chronicled the story of a woman whose picture was stolen from a personal ad, then widely used as an ad for a pornography Web site.
So I decided to follow up on 10 Women of Twitter tweets to see where they took us. They are easy to find: Just do a search for any popular topic, like ‘iPad.” Many of them feign interest in financial news or other world events, but the accounts are simply set up to automatically pull in and post news headlines and to generate keyword hits based on newsworthy topics. The crazy tweets this generates is reminiscent of the “word salad,” spam that was in vogue a couple of years ago, when billions of emails were sent containing what seemed to be the world’s worst Haiku.
In each case, I attempted to directly contact the poster and conduct an interview but had no luck. I did get one rather ironic response, however.
In my Top 10 list, which consists of 15k and nine others, I'm using the pronoun “her” to describe each account because the picture is female. But I have no idea of the real gender of the account holder.
Twitter, of course, has publicly said it is trying to fight spam like this, but it did not respond to requests for comment for this story. You can see our ongoing list of the Women of Twitter here, but please don’t click on any of their profiles. You can also follow me.
2Toopweb
“Toopweb” is pretty direct in her pose, and her message. The “try me” note posted on her picture has little to do with struggling British homeowners, but we clicked anyway. Her profile page goes nowhere, but she’s a prolific writer. She’s already posted 6,000 tweets -- sometimes, she posts several an hour -- and has pulled in 600 followers. Her current concern at our last visit? “Early childhood education schools LearnmoreMN Blog: How to rebuild the foundation of Minnesota’s education system.”
Naritiwas
This Twitter user has a much more obvious business model. Her “real name” is “DVD Bluray,” and her profile links to a website that upsells movies. Mind you, she carries no merchandise -- all the links on that site are affiliate links for Amazon.com, where Naritiwas gets a cut for every sale. She has about 4,500 followers. Her Tweets are equally varied. Her most recent tweet on our visit? “Car accidents in Los Angeles County -- Expert Attorneys Wanted.”
Budgetingtips4u
I write a lot about personal finance issues, so it was natural for me to visit the account named “Budgetingtips4u.” I was disappointed, however, with the advice I got there. The first Tweet I read: “Alarm Clock Lamp Article: Alarm Clock Lamp Article It’s difficult to provide accurate Alarm Clock Lamp information.” If anything, alarm clocks in my life are far too accurate. The “real” name Budgetingtips4u gives is Kasy Alutman, but that gets me nowhere. It’s not hard to discern her real motivation, however: Her most recent tweet was “Traffic Building Tips When You Get Stuck | TRAFFIC BUILDING « Learn Traffic Building.”
Savvypromoter
I came closest to real contact when I reached out to Savvypromoter. She seems to be a real person engaged in real Internet marketing promotion -- at least judging by her YouTube videos, which promise watchers a work-at-home business that includes a “system that is going to change your life,” and enable early retirement. She says her name is Amanda Powlesland and that she’s originally from New Zealand. She describes herself as an “Entrepreneur, Internet Marketer, Counsellor, Philanthropist, International traveller, Nature lover, CarbonCopyPro Member.” Despite this, her tweets also seem like automated headlines. Here’s one: “China mobile subscriber total rises to 833.1 million in Nov (Reuters): Reuters - China Mobile….”
I followed her on Twitter, and sent her an e-mail at what seems to be her legitimate e-mail account, requesting an interview. I had hard-hitting questions in mind. Here’s the response I got:
“Thanks for trusting me! Do you want to know an easy 'paint by numbers' approach to earning an extra $3000 per month: ”
I wouldn’t trust her.
Kc616
“KC Fong” is the name connected to this account, which holds the record in our group for most prolific. She’s sent 186,000 tweets. She also seems oddly interested in small-town New Jersey property crimes, despite her stated location of Las Vegas. Her profile page is about as subtle as her picture. It links to “lofu.offershop.us,” an amalgamation of online retailer clicks.
“Our Web site is a third party marketing website for companies such as Netflix, Cash4Gold, and many more,” the site says. You’ll notice that Toopweb, mentioned earlier, follows KC Fong suggesting a) She wants to learn from a master Tweeter or b) the accounts might be controlled by the same person or organization.
Adultstuffsite
This not-the-girl-next-door account posts innocuous and varied headlines all day long. Some sports headlines (“Packers backup QB nearly knocks off Tom Brady!), some tech news (“Sonex electric completes first test flight”) and even world entertainment news (“Survivor: Nicaragua – Live Reunion Show!). On my first visit, she was tweeting about Yogi Bear, the movie. But the account is really a doorway to something more serious. She follows 730 other tweeters, most of which seem to be escort services. Her first five Twitter pals are “Lost Angeles Escorts,” “Detroit Escorts,” “Washington D.C. escorts,” “Calgary escorts,” and “Toronto escorts” -- she obviously has gone international. Notes left on those pages seem to suggest they serve as authentic classified ads for paid sex.
Acaiberrybibler
Acaiberrybible takes a very different tack than our other Women of Twitter. Her tweets are all on one topic, focused on weight loss and health benefits of certain foods. Like the others here, she both follows and is following about 2,400 accounts, suggesting quite a bit of account sharing going on. It also suggests the spammers know just how many followers they can accumulate before getting on the radar of Twitter’s spam fighters. This account holder says she’s in Los Angeles, and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that her profile links to a Web page devoted to selling a “free” trial of acai berries. In an interesting mix of techniques, the page is also part of the “fakosphere,” complete with a blog and supposed random reader comments from people who lost weight after signing up. There’s even advertisements from Groupon, pulled in via one of those marketing affiliate arrangements.
LainaMedoza3200
LainaMedoza3200, whose names sounds more like a computer model than a clothing model, also takes a different strategy. She claims to be giving away from iPads! But interspersed with those aggressive offers, she produces some of the best poetry among the Women of Twitter.
'My good lord, I am so pleased to see you, he gushed, a soft eunuch’s smile on his powdered face,' reads one tweet. 'The weirwoods were beyond the Wall, yet he knew Sam meant what he said,' reads another.
A quick Internet search reveals the posts are pulled -- not from a news feed -- but from a fantasy novel called “A Game of Thrones” by George R. R. Martin. At least she’s literary. I hope Martin receives some royalties for this.
Hotnewss
Finally, it should be obvious why I was attracted to “hotnewss.” I’m interested in any and all news scoops. Without apology, hotnewss -- who says her name is, ironically, Jane Rich -- links to random wire stories from around the world, like “Police arrest 12 men in counter-terrorism raids (Reuters).” And her profile links to a webpage that also throws together random headlines, Google News style, called wharfyouth.org, with the awkward label “Latest Update Headline News” -- but not before passing users through a page named MyGoogleTrends.info. The domain for that page is registered to someone listing the name “Bung Sa” in Singapore. No word if Bung Sa is starting a hedge fund.

Facebooklink

Game #3 - What is it?

"Here is the item for today.
Leave your guess in the comments and no links please.
No winners or losers. Have fun!

Update: Scott was right on with the first guess.
It is a flood light for taking movies or pictures. Remember all those old 8mm films that show people squinting as they wave at the camera or looking down while waving? Well, this is flood light that brought those beautiful family movies!
Photo has been edited to remove manufacturer information

Decoding the Expiration Date Wording

"Although this next bit of info isn't technically frugal, it may save you some money by wasting less.
The actual term 'Expiration Date' refers to the last date a food should be eaten or used. Last means last -- proceed at your own risk

'Sell by' date: This tells the store how long to display the product for sale. You should buy the product before the date expires. This is basically a guide for the retailer, so the store knows when to pull the item. This is not mandatory, so reach in back and get the freshest. The 'sell by' date is the last day the item is at its highest level of quality, but it will still be edible for some time after.

'Born on' date: This is the date of manufacture that has been resurrected recently to date beer and soda pop. These drinks can go bad after three months.

'Guaranteed fresh' date: This usually refers to bakery items. They will still be edible after the date, but will not be at peak freshness.

'Use by' date: This is the last date recommended for the use of the product while at peak quality. The manufacturer of the product has determined this date.
'Pack' date: You will find this one on canned or packaged goods, as a rule, but it's tricky. In fact, it may be in code. You may find it best to call the manufacturer for how good it is.

Work At Home Places and Warnings

Today while I was at work, a woman came into to send 6 thousands dollars to a man in Nigeria for real estate she was going to buy. It seemed like a scam to me considering all the scams that come from Nigeria, but she seemed determined to invest her money in this property, site unseen anyway.

The sayings that are out there, like: 'If it seems to be to good to be true, if probably is' or 'Buyer beware' come to mind when I think of buying real estate site unseen or getting jobs that are sent via email.

The BBB.org has some good words of wisdom when it comes to specifically looking for jobs - some good info at the site.

# Employer e-mails are rife with grammatical and spelling errors -
Job postings with grammatical errors seem like a give away to me as spellchecker is a common tool online now.

# E-mails purporting to be from job posting Web sites claiming there’s a problem with a job hunter’s account-
Fraud websites phish for your information to gather data on you or even install malicious spyware on your computer.

# An employer asks for extensive personal information such as social security or bank account numbers -
This is a huge red flag to me, I would much rather give this information in person and only if I am sure the job is a guarantee; like setting up my w-2 forms

# An employer offers the opportunity to become rich without leaving home-
Even though there is the occasional good job out there can be worked from home, this to me falls under the 'too good to be true' idea.

# An employer asks for money upfront -
Via bbb.org: 'Aside from paying for a uniform, it is rarely advisable for an applicant to pay upfront fees or make a required purchase to get a job.'

# The salary and benefits offered seem too-good-to-be-true -

# The job requires the employee to wire money through Western Union or MoneyGram-
I think the final two items are the biggest red lights to me, if the job offer makes me scowl and say 'Hmmmm?' I am on guard.

However, there are some good jobs out there and Clark Howard and CNN both put together a few, with some overlapping.

CNN - Companies that will hire you to work at home. They list Alpine Access, Convergys, Extended Presence, Internet Girl Friday, LiveOps, Spheris, Staffcentrix, West At Home, Voicelog and VIPDesk

Clark Howard - Work from Home options are: alpineaccess, arise.com, convergysworkathome.com, elance.com, intellicare.com, liveops.com and msvas.com. There are others as well.

But I want to let you know that some of these jobs fall in the BBB.org's idea of a red flag in that they ask for money upfront and for background checks so I would do much more research on those websites if you are interested.

Will eBay reveal street artist Banksy’s secret identity?

Secret identities are pretty valuable. Street-artist Banksy knows that pretty well, having never revealed his (or her) own.
But not all things can stay secret in the age of the internet. An intrepid seller on eBay is offering the identity of the anonymous artist for a cool $1 million.
Banksy is the pseudonym for a British street artist known for painting traditionally satirical and black humor paintings on the walls of buildings across the world. The artwork relies on a stencil-like style and has become a bit of a cult phenomenon, even spurring the creators of the Simpsons to commission an opening couch gag from the eccentric artist.
But Banksy’s identity has never been revealed. Even when creating the couch gag episode, the Simpsons creators went through a series of representatives for the artist and never had direct contact with him (or her). That’s actually been part of the appeal of the enigmatic artist — that, and Banksy’s contempt for auctioneers that try to sell his art for profit.
The eBay seller, Jaybuysthings, claims he has confirmed Banksy’s identity by matching the price he sold his artwork for with some tax records. That’s a pretty crafty way to go about doing it, although the seller didn’t give any additional details about how he came by the tax information.
Regardless of the validity of the claim, it’s already attracted 38 bids and the price has gone all the way up to a cool $999,999.00. The auction started just last week and ends on Wednesday. The winner will receive a piece of paper that will have the name of Banksy on it — because eBay originally wouldn’t let Jaybuysthings sell something that wasn’t a physical object.
The seller has a 100 percent positive feedback rating, but then again, he only has 9 reviews in the past 12 months. Mad props to Jaybuysthings if the sale actually goes through without a hitch — that’s quite a way to generate a cool $1 million for some extra work.
To the rest of the Internet (especially those bidding on the identity) — seriously? The identity of Banksy is probably worth that much, but eBay doesn’t seem like the most productive way to go about discovering it.
At least Jaybuysthings is offering free shipping.
[Photo: Leeks]
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Preview: Test Drive Unlimited 2

I love checkpoints.
Test Drive Unlimited 2 is due in about a month. I’ve had my hands on some beta code for a couple of days, exploring the racing-meets-affluence world of high-fliers. So if you’d be so polite as to click on, you can hear my early-day thoughts on the matter.

Met to release new NoW hacking files

• Police to release previously undisclosed records
• Details may put pressure on Andy Coulson
The scandal threatening to engulf the News of the World will intensify this week when the Metropolitan police hands over previously undisclosed documents relating to the hacking of celebrities' mobile phones while the paper was edited by Andy Coulson, David Cameron's communications director.
The documents are expected to trigger fresh allegations that phone hacking at the paper was extensive and not the work of 'one rogue reporter' as it has maintained. The fear for News International, the parent company of the News of the World, owned by Rupert Murdoch, is that the documents may contain the names of commissioning journalists.
Scotland Yard has until Wednesday to comply with a court order obliging it to provide lawyers representing the sports agent Skylet Andrew with material relating to the hacking of his phone which was recovered by police from the offices of Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator in the pay of the newspaper.
Andrew, who represents Ashes hero James Anderson, the former England footballer Sol Campbell and the Stoke City player Jermaine Pennant, is one of the leading sports agents in the UK.
The imminent disclosure comes as the News of the World defends itself against a legal action brought by the actor Sienna Miller. Ian Edmondson, the News of the World assistant editor, has been suspended amid allegations he sanctioned the hacking of Miller's phones. His suspension triggered a request from Scotland Yard for the newspaper to share any new information it had on the scandal.
Disclosure of Andrew's files is viewed by lawyers as of equal significance to the Miller revelations. The documents relate to the original 2006 hacking case involving the interception of royal aides' phones that resulted in the jailing of Mulcaire and the paper's former royal editor and gossip columnist Clive Goodman. During the trial, Mulcaire also pleaded guilty to intercepting the phones of Andrew and four other high-profile figures.
At the time the News of the World denied knowing anything about this additional hacking which, along with Andrew, involved the supermodel Elle Macpherson, the MP Simon Hughes, the publicist Max Clifford, and the former head of the Professional Footballers' Association, Gordon Taylor.
Clifford, however, sued the newspaper, dropping his case only after accepting a reported £1m to settle out of court, a move that meant all the files taken from Mulcaire's office by the Met and disclosed to the publicist's legal team never made it into court. Taylor also settled for a substantial sum, a decision that again meant potentially damaging files never entered the public domain.
But Andrew has pursued a low-profile legal action, and the release of the Met's files relating to his case, which must also be shared with lawyers representing the News of the World, means the newspaper could yet be forced to defend itself in court.
Andrew's legal team will be keen to discover to what extent, if any, the files refer to Goodman, Edmondson, Greg Miskiw, the paper's former assistant editor, and its chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, who all face allegations they knew phone hacking was taking place. Rupert Murdoch, when questioned about the affair last year, said: 'There was one incident more than five years ago ... the person who bought the bugged conversation was immediately fired. If anything was to come to light, and we have challenged those people who have made allegations to provide evidence ... we would take immediate action.'
Coulson, who resigned as editor of the News of the World after Goodman and Mulcaire were sentenced, has denied knowing hacking was taking place on his watch. David Cameron has staunchly defended his director of communications. But investigations by the Guardian suggested phone hacking was widespread on the newspaper under Coulson.
News International faces questions about whether it will offer Edmondson a pay-off to leave the paper or whether it will itself take legal action against its senior employee. Further pressure on News International will come this week when a cross-party parliamentary committee again discusses the scandal. The Observer understands that in the past few days several more celebrities whose phones were also allegedly hacked, have signed up with law firms to bring actions against the newspaper.
Today a spokesman for News International said it had no comment. A spokeswoman for the News of the World also declined to speak.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Nintendo’s 3DS handheld launch plans: 4M units to ship

Nintendo revealed this weekend that its 3DS handheld game player launch is on schedule, and it announced more details about its release plans.
The 3DS will go on sale first in Japan on Feb. 26. It debuts in the U.S. and Europe in March. For the Japanese market, Nintendo is targeting a $300 price and plans to ship around 1.5 million units there by the end of March. Worldwide, the company aims to ship 4 million units. The Kyoto, Japan-based company made the announcement at its Nintendo World conference in Japan.
The 3DS is Nintendo’s attempt to revive the handheld game industry, which has been pummeled by sales of Apple’s iPod Touch and iPhone devices, which feature good-quality games that are either free or sell for as little as 99 cents. Against this good-enough competition from smartphones and other general-purpose mobile entertainment devices, games-focused handheld makers like Nintendo have struggled.
The 3DS features stereoscopic 3D viewing without the need to wear special glasses and so represents one of the great hopes that consumers will embrace 3D viewing of both movies and games.
Ten games will be available at the launch in Japan. They include Nintendogs + Cats (three versions), Konami’s Winning Eleven 3DSoccer, Capcom’s Super Street Fighter IV, Tecmo Koei’s Samurai Warriors: Chronicle, Square Enix’s Tobidasu! Puzzle Bobble, Namco Bandai’s Ridge Racer 3D, Ubisoft’s Combat of Giants, and Level-5’s Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle.
Nintendo said the portable device will have a battery life of 3.5 – 5 hours when playing games, depending on factors such as screen brightness and use of wireless. While playing DS or DSi games, the handheld will have a battery life of 5 to 8 hours. That’s pretty similar to the battery life for a DSi handheld. It will launch in Japan in two colors: Aqua Blue and Cosmo Black.

The device will come with a charging dock, an AC adapter, an extendable stylus, augmented-reality cards, and a 2 gigabyte SD memory card. Nintendo said it would launch its own first-party games. Steel Diver, Pilotwings Resort, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D are set for the spring. Starfox 64 3D and Kid Icarus are coming in the summer; and Mario Kart 3DS, Animal Crossing 3DS, and Paper Mario 3DS will come after that. Nintendo is expected to announce its launch date for the 3DS on Jan. 19.
Nintendo recently warned that children six years and younger shouldn’t play the handheld in 3D mode because of potential health risks.
[pictured: Satoru Iwata, chief executive of Nintendo, announcing the 3DS last June]
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Bloody Hell

It feels lovely, getting to say stuff like “Recettear has sold 100,000 copies” and “Amnesia has sold 200,000 copies.” Those figures mean that small groups of people’s lives have changed, improved, had nice sofas and bigger TVs added to them. Truly, it warms the cockles of EARTH_MAMMAL_HUMAN_ORGAN_HEART.
Then Blizzard announce that they’ve sold 4.7 million copies of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and you just think “God, that’s a lot of goblins.”

WoL Footage: Harris, Steenberg, Betts

So we already posted the Subversion wobblecam footage from last year’s big indie event, World Of Love, but now there’s much more from a bunch of other speakers. Almost certainly the most interesting of these is the talk by Cliff Harris, who speaks in plain terms about the practicalities of making a living from producing indie games. If you don’t have a cash-button formula like Minecraft then there’s still a lot of hard work to be done, and Cliffski lays that out with illegible Powerpoint slides and straight-talking. Really, this one is worth a watch.
There’s also some of Eskil Steenberg’s wizardry, and some thoughts about how to avoid retro visuals and look good in the 21st century from Tom “Nullpointer” Betts. Go take a look. Also, don’t forget the second World Of Love is up this month. More on that soon!

Exorcising Elder Scrolls’ Voice Issues?

24 years on and they still haven't resolved Flash Gordon's cliffhanger
I hadn’t heard that Max Von Sydow (him from the Exorcist, The Seventh Seal, er-ah-um Judge Dredd and the voice of Vigo in Ghostbusters 2) was voicing a major character in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Mixed feelings: I had this cynical concern that half the reason there were so many repeated, annoying and repeatedly annoying voices in Oblivion and Fallout 3 was because Bethesda blew all their actor budget on hiring Patrick Stewart and Liam Neeson respectively. I really don’t understand that kind of stunt-casting in games – you don’t see the guy, so the same promotional clout just doesn’t exist. Why not spend that money and complication on hiring a dozen great-but-cheap unknowns to better bring your world to multi-voiced life?
The honourable Mr Von Sydow, however, is much more of a character actor than a limelight-hogging celebrity type, and I suspect he’s a damn sight cheaper too.

3D PC Gaming Without Glasses

Of course it's a gag, numbnuts
Oh boy, this is such a relief: the technological revolution we’ve all been waiting for is here. All you need to see and play steroscopic 3D games on any PC is a 120 Mhz monitor and a tiny pair of non-obtrusive gizmos created by French inventor Francois Vogel. No more stupid plastic spectacles, no more colour-dimming polarised lenses. This is going to change gaming forever. This is going to change the world forever.
Sheer genius. You’ll see.

Never Forget: Infogrames’ Greatest Hit

This is very, very, very old. That doesn’t make it any less beautiful, or any less worth posting now. Infogrames: that’s our world.
Well, was our world. Consider this official promotional song from way back when a perfect eulogy for the artist later known as Atari.
Altogether now: “Unreal Tournament / Test Drive / Survivor / Civilization / Superman saaaaaaaaves the nation…” And that’s not all.

(more…)

“MMORTS” Is A Real Thing, Honest

MMORTS games keeping being talked about by various beardymen, but I can only remember ever playing one, or maybe two? Anyway, they weren’t great, nor memorable, clearly. Reverie World Studios are aiming to change that with Dawn Of Fantasy, which is both beautiful and epic (see trailer below) thanks to judicious use of GRAPHICS. Woo! See how they sparkle.
The game will be released June 3rd 2011, and we’ll play it. You can try to play it now, actually, as there’s a closed beta in progress. Anyway, when I have played it we will say that I have played maybe three MMORTS games, so it’s a real genre now. Okay.

Urinal games help men aim straight

Tokyo urinals fitted with games enabling users to test power and accuracy
A Japanese entertainment company has combined men's obsession with video games with their perennial inability to aim straight to create a range of distractions in selected Tokyo urinals.
Sega has installed the Toylets in male lavatories at four bars and games arcades in the Japanese capital.
The games use pressure sensors attached to eye-level LCD screens that test users' accuracy as they answer the call of nature.
The four games include one in which the object is to spray the screen clean of graffiti. Another, Manneken Pis, named after the famous statue in Brussels, measures the volume of the urine stream.
Splashing Battle, meanwhile, pits one user against another – though thankfully not directly – by challenging him to produce a more powerful stream than the previous visitor.
In the fourth game, the North Wind and the Sun and Me, sensors control a digital wind blowing up a young woman's skirt. The greater the stream's intensity, the higher the skirt travels.
The games sit (or stand) well with Japan's open attitude to all matters micturition.
Children are raised on tales of ghosts who inhabit toilets, perhaps to encourage cleanliness, while girls are encouraged to keep on the good side of the female deity who supposedly resides in domestic WCs.
While many foreign visitors to Japan find themselves befuddled by hi-tech 'washlets' in upmarket hotels and restaurants, locals are accustomed to heated sets, multidirectional jets of warm air and water, and even face-saving 'perfume bursts'.
For the easily embarrassed, the toilet maker Toto offers Otohime (Sound Princess) – a gadget tailored for women's public lavatories that emits the sound of running water.
Sega said the Toylet games would be available only until the end of the month, and it had no plans to market them commercially.
Household versions would be unlikely to succeed. According to a 2009 survey by Toto, more than 33% of Japanese men prefer to urinate while sitting down.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

7 A.M. (New Year's Morning) [Street Scene from Above, Man on Bicycle], ca. 1930

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (American, b. Hungary, 1895-1946)

7 A.M. (New Year's Morning) [Street Scene from Above, Man on Bicycle], ca. 1930

Gelatin silver print; 27.8 x 21.3 cm (10 15/16 x 8 3/8 in.)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987 (1987.1100.155)

© 2010 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Information about hundreds of thousands of works of art is available in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Collection Database.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Copyright © 2000–2011 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. All rights reserved.

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Gingerbread Serenity is the sweetest ship in the 'Verse [Concept Art]


Perhaps if there had been a Christmas episode of Firefly, Kaylee would have made a gingerbreadish version of her home, the starship Serenity, out of some ghastly protein substance. But this gingerbread Serenity looks plenty good enough to eat. More »

These Apps Are Rampantly Stealing Your Info Without Permission [Privacy]

I love Pandora. I really couldn't do without it. But I could do without its sending my demographic information, phone ID, and location to eight trackers across six companies. And Pandora's far from the worst offender, the WSJ shows us. More »

Progress in Algorithms Beats Moore’s Law

Every so often Lance tweets about some science policy report. My natural tendency, like any good techie, is to keep my distance from such reports. I do recognize that they serve an important social function (like dentists or lawyers) but personally I would want to have as little as possible to do with them. However, I do sometimes skim over them, trying to gain some fuzzy insight or point of view. Here is an observation I picked from the Report to the President and Congress: Designing a Digital Future: Federally FUnded R&D in Networking and IT:
Everyone knows Moore’s Law – a prediction made in 1965 by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that the density of transistors in integrated circuits would continue to double every 1 to 2 years. (…) Even more remarkable – and even less widely understood – is that in many areas, performance gains due to improvements in algorithms have vastly exceeded even the dramatic performance gains due to increased processor speed.
The algorithms that we use today for speech recognition, for natural language translation, for chess playing, for logistics planning, have evolved remarkably in the past decade. It’s difficult to quantify the improvement, though, because it is as much in the realm of quality as of execution time.
In the field of numerical algorithms, however, the improvement can be quantified. Here is just one example, provided by Professor Martin Grötschel of Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum für Informationstechnik Berlin. Grötschel, an expert in optimization, observes that a benchmark production planning model solved using linear programming would have taken 82 years to solve in 1988, using the computers and the linear programming algorithms of the day. Fifteen years later – in 2003 – this same model could be solved in roughly 1 minute, an improvement by a factor of roughly 43 million. Of this, a factor of roughly 1,000 was due to increased processor speed, whereas a factor of roughly 43,000 was due to improvements in algorithms! Grötschel also cites an algorithmic improvement of roughly 30,000 for mixed integer programming between 1991 and 2008.

From tables to 5 star linked data


The goal and vision of the Semantic
Web is to create a Web of connected and interlinked data (items)
which can be shared and reused by all. Sharing and opening up “raw
data” is great; but the Semantic Web isn’t just about
sharing data. To create a Web of data, one needs interlinking
between data. In 2006, Sir Tim Berners-Lee introduced the notion of
linked data in which he outlined the best practices for creating
and sharing data on the Web. To encourage people and government to
share data, he recently developed the following rating system -

The highest rating is for the data
that can link to other people’s data to provide context. While the
Semantic Web has been growing steadily, there is lot of data that
is still in raw format. A study by Google researchers shows that there are 154 million
tables with high quality relational data on the world wide web. The
US government along with 7 other nations have started sharing data
publicly. Not all the data is RDF or confers with the best
practices of publishing and sharing linked data.
Here in the Ebiquity Research Lab,
we have been focusing on converting data in tables and spreadsheets
into RDF; but our focus is not on generating just RDF, but rather
generate high quality linked data (as now Berners-Lee calls it
“5 star data”). Our goal is to build a completely automated
framework for interpreting tables and generating linked data from
it.

As part of our preliminary
research, we have already developed a baseline framework which can
link the table column headers to classes from ontologies in
the linked data cloud datasets, link the table cells to entities in
the linked data cloud and identify relations between table columns
and map them to properties in the linked data cloud. You can read
papers related to our preliminary research at [1]. We will use this
blog as a medium to publish updates in our pursuit of creating
“5-star” data for the Semantic Web.
If you are data publisher, go grab
some Linked Data star badges at [2]. You can show your support to
the open data movement by gettings t-shirts, mugs and bumper
stickers from [3] ! (all profits go to W3C)
Happy Holidays ! Let 2011 be yet
another step forward in the open data movement !

That’s Not Very Happy

job fails - That's Not Very Happy


Filed under: Image Tagged: computer, error, funny, terminal
Submitted by: Unknown

New Year's Resolutions

I drew this comic at the dawn of 2010. Here's how the somewhat autobiographical resolutions in the first panel turned out: I've failed miserably at getting organized. I still floss every night, as any non-hypocritical dental student should. I've written poetry, but it's been mostly goofy light verse. I've enjoyed ethnic food, smiled, practiced yoga, worked out, and volunteered, but only sporadically. I've enjoyed literary fiction (as pretentious as that sounds), especially the novels of Haruki Murakami. I can't bike to work - I'm not employed. And finally, I never actually quote bad movies - I only quote great movies that other people think are bad. My resolution for 2011: to keep going back and coloring old comics so I can repost them on my blog and make them available as posters.

21 E-Commerce Plugins and Shopping Carts for WordPress 3.0+

Want to start the new year off by turning your WordPress website into a full-fledged online store? You’re in luck – WordPress has a wide range of options available. We’ve put together a list of e-commerce plugins and carts that work with WordPress 3.0+, as well as a short introduction to each to help you narrow down your options. These are in no particular order. Some are free and some are premium, but what they all have in common is that they’ve been fairly recently updated for the latest version of WordPress.

MarketPress

MarketPress is the only e-commerce plugin designed from the ground up for seamless integration with WP Multisite and BuddyPress, enabling you to create a single store or a network of stores. It’s packed full of features so that you can manage everything related to your transactions through the WordPress dashboard.

WP E-Commerce


This free plugin is used by thousands of WordPress sites. It’s a shopping cart that lets customers buy your products, services and digital downloads online. Premium upgrades are available for additional features beyond what the free version offers.

eShop


eShop is a free plugin available in the WordPress repository and is fairly regularly updated. It is Multisite-compatible and includes several merchant gateways right out of the box: Authorize.net, Paypal, Payson, eProcessingNetwork, Webtopay, iDEAL and Cash/Cheque. Despite it’s lack of screenshots, the plugin is packed full of features worth checking out.

ShopperPress


ShopperPress is a premium cart for WordPress that comes with 20+ to choose from and 20+ built in payment gateways. The software boasts one-click setups, personalized user accounts, easy management tools, detailed sales tracking, promotional options, a variety of product import tools, and many more features.

PHPurchase


PHPurchase is a premium solution that allows you to sell digital and physical products, collect recurring payments for subscriptions, memberships, and payment plans.

StorePress


StorePress is a premium WordPress theme, fully coded and packed with scripts that will allow you to transform your WordPress blog into a veritable e-commerce virtual store.

shopp


Shopp is a premium plugin that adds a feature-rich online store to your WordPress-powered website or blog. Gateways and shipping options are also available as premium add-ons.

YAK for WordPress


YAK is a free, open source shopping cart plugin for WordPress. It associates products with pages or posts and handles different types of products through categorization. Purchase options include cheque or deposit, basic credit card form, basic Google Checkout integration, standard PayPal integration, PayPal Payments Pro, and Authorize.net.

Dippsy


Dippsy stands for DIgital Products PayPal Store for You. Use it to sell music, e-books, software, pictures, videos or anything that can be stored digitally. Read more about the plugin in our recent review.

WP Auctions


WP Auctions is a free plugin which allows you to host auctions on your blog or website and to sell products. It uses an attractive AJAX powered popup and setup can be accomplished in just a few minutes.

WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart


If you need a simple shopping cart with PayPal for taking payments, then this may be the plugin for you. It places an ‘Add to Cart’ button on any posts or pages. It also allows you to add and display the shopping cart on any post or page or sidebar.

Ecwid Shopping Cart


Ecwid is a free full-featured shopping cart and an e-commerce solution that can easily be added to any blog or Facebook profile. “Ecwid” stands for “ecommerce widgets”. The most notable thing about this shopping cart is that it has AJAX everywhere and supports drag-and-drop.

WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin


This is a premium plugin that comes with a wide variety of features that seamlessly integrate an online shop with a fully functional shopping cart interface into any WordPress website.

Interspire and BigCommerce


This is a free plugin that allows you to integrate the Interspire Shopping Cart & BigCommerce hosted ecommerce shopping carts into your WordPress site. It allows you to easily find and link to your Interspire or BigCommerce products from within WordPress.

FoxyPress


This is a free e-commerce plugin for FoxyCart to easily add items to your WordPress posts or pages. Add items through the WYSIWYG Editor or shortcode.

wpStoreCart


wpStoreCart is a free, open source, and full featured e-commerce platform built atop of WordPress. It is easy to use, lightweight, heavily supported and constantly updated with new features.

Volusion


This plugin allows you to easily link to and display your Volusion products from within WordPress.

Wazala Ecommerce Store & Shopping Cart


Wazala is a hosted ecommerce and shopping cart solution. This plugin facilitates the integration of your Wazala store within your WordPress site. The plugin adds a simple and beautiful store button to your website. When clicked the customer will have a shopping experience right within your own site.

LBAK Google Checkout


The LBAK Google Checkout plugin is aimed mainly at small projects that just want to sell a few things on their blog through Google Checkout and don’t want too much else apart from ease of use.

Image Store


Image Store is an image gallery and store plugin for WordPress with a slideshow and PayPal integration. This is a nice simple solution for photographers or anyone strictly selling images. It includes easy FTP folder import, watermarks and dynamic generation of several photo effects along with the e-commerce functionality.

Prospress


Prospress gives your WordPress site its very own auction marketplace. Registered users will be able to post auctions, place bids, provide feedback and make payments.